Smoking can cause emphysema, lung cancer, and heart disease. But none of this is new, none of it is news. All smokers know about this, but they tune out and gloss over the possibility of coming down with smoking-related diseases so that smoking does not feel like a fearful, guilty experience. But the sooner you take off the blinders and carefully consider the damage nicotine addiction causes, the sooner you can quit smoking cigarettes. Here are five good reasons to go easy on the cigarettes.
1. Heart Disease
In the U.S alone, coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death, and the leading cause of the disease is smoking. Cigarette smoke toxins cause plaque to form in arteries. This leads to atherosclerosis, or the hardening of arteries. Put more simply, smoking is hard on the heart.
2. Lung Cancer
The American Cancer Society estimates that in the U.S alone, hundreds of thousands will be diagnosed with cancer every year, and three-fourths of these cases will result in death.
Lung cancer is the cancer that causes the most number of deaths in both women and men. Worse, 87 percent of lung cancer cases involve tobacco. The silver lining in the dark cloud is that lung cancer is completely preventable, and the best way to prevent it is to quit smoking cigarettes.
3. Stroke
According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, stroke kills more than 150,000 people every year. It's the third most frequent cause of death in the U.S. The risk of suffering a stroke is higher for smokers than that of non-smokers - roughly 2 and 1/2 times more, in fact.
4. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
This lung disease either narrows your airways or blocks them altogether. When this happens, air flow in and out of your lungs is reduced. It's a slow, progressive disease that is irreversible. Tobacco is the leading cause of COPD. If you're a smoker and want to halt the damage, stop smoking. There is no other way. In the U.S alone, an estimated 14 million suffer COPD undiagnosed.
5. Oral Cancer
According to statistics, 70 percent of all oral cancer cases are due to heavy tobacco use and alcohol consumption. Why risk coming down with oral cancer? Quit smoking cigarettes while you still can.
Do not wait till you're sick to quit smoking cigarettes. Learn just how destructive tobacco really is, and start fighting your nicotine addiction today!